This comprehensive three-DVD boxed set explores the life, times, and works of Charles Dickens, beginning with a three-hour biography, mixing documentary and dramatic reconstruction and starring Anton Lesser as Dickens. Here too is the classic 1999 BBC production of David Copperfield, Dickens' most autobiographical novel, with Bob Hoskins, Daniel Radcliffe, Maggie Smith, and Ian McKellen. On Disc 3, Lesser (as Dickens) delivers a dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol to a gathering of friends and relatives at his house. Songs from Grope Lane is a performance of seedy pub songs as Dickens might have heard them at a raucous tavern as a boy.